I know I've blogged about this before but I feel a rant coming on and I just can't hold it back any longer... I am so beyond FED UP with agencies that promise (and sometimes deliver) very very young babies, very fast referrals and insanely quick waits to travel and the PAPs who jump at the chance to sign up with these agencies, never stopping to consider HOW it is possible for said agency to have such ridiculously quick timeframes when nearly every other (ethical) agency has long waits to referral, and 4-6 months waits to travel and the children referred are generally 3-6 months old, at the youngest.
People, STOP and THINK. Yes, it sounds good to have a very quick referral. And it sounds wonderful to get a referral of a 6-8 week old baby. And wow what a miracle that your agency can get your travel approval in only one to two months! It sounds too good to be true! Wait! It is!! Read the Procedures for American Citizens Adopting an Orphan in Vietnam posted on the embassy website and then tell me you can think of an ethical and legal way to get a very young baby home super fast. The truth is you can't. The only way agencies are able to make good on those promises is to break the rules. They pay extra "fees" or make big "donations" to orphanages, officials, anyone who will look the other way or rubber stamp their paperwork. Or they find other ways around the system.
Okay, so what if you argue that it's in the child's best interested to be adopted as young as possible so the ends justify the means? Well, I would argue that it is not in the child's best interests when there is no (meaningful) search for birth families or efforts to preserve the family unit. Has anyone noticed most of these super young babies are "abandoned"? Yes, abandonments happen. But it's also true that when a child is "abandoned" it does away with all that pesky relinquishment paperwork and extra time that might take. And even if the child is legitimately available for adoption, when agencies start paying extra fees (aka bribes) and cutting corners, that does two things: first, it punishes everyone working with an ethical agency because they get pushed to the end of the line while the fastlane agency's cases are "expedited". Second, when too many things start to look very suspicious, the US government has shown it is not afraid to just shut everything down. And then how many kids will find loving families?
Please. Please, if you are in the process of choosing an agency, or if you are working with an agency and they are making these kinds of incredible promises...please take a step back. Consider how it is they can deliver on those promises. Be willing to leave an agency or choose one with a longer timeline. I know it's hard to wait. Believe me, no one knows better than I how hard waiting is*. But twenty years from now, when your son or daughter asks about their adoption process, what do you think will matter to them: How fast the process was, or how ethical it was?
*I am in no way advocating a process as long as ours is taking. In fact, in my opinion an official who stalls or ignores the timelines and procedures outlined in Vietnam's adoption decree is also acting unethically and is clearly not considering the bests interests of the child.
Friday, September 15, 2006
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11 comments:
I agree with you. 100%.
You've had some great topics on your blog!
I'd definitely pick an ethical adoption over a fast adoption any day. Its worth the wait.
I am with you 100%.
Even though it means that our process will probably not be "quick" and our child will not be an infant....
Having integrity for our children and respect for their first families has to be a priority...This could be a soapbox topic for me as well...
I never really thought about that before. I just thought that those with shorter waits had agencies that had better connections with country officials. However, I did choose our agency partly because they were one of the agencies that I knew kept all of the rules (no posting pics on line- doing only blind referrals, etc.). I just thought that if the agency was ethical in general they would also be ethical with us.
THANK YOU!! Yes, yes, yes. Amen.
We should all ask ourselves what we might tell our children when they are older and ask what kind of efforts were made to ensure that they were truly orphaned and not just bought or sold. Can we look them in the eye and tell them that all methods possible were taken? Or will we have to explain that we were so anxious for a baby that we allowed an agency to skip over important parts of the process in order to get the child "out of there" as fast as possible? There is a bigger picture. Just because an agency and a family get away with it in the short term doesn't mean there won't be long term reprecussions.
Yes, documents might expire and parents might be burdened and that stinks. But it pales in comparison to the pervasive effects when an unethical practice is supported.
Good post. I think about that often. With Russian adoption I myself have been told twice by an agency that I could switch to them and have our child home within 3-4 months when most normal ethical agencies take 6-12 months just to get the referral!!!!! I agree with what you said about being able to tell our child we did it right when they ask.
Thanks for posting this.
SO true. You know, as annoyed as I get with the Russian govt over accreditation, I do support the overall idea of holding agencies accountable. They are trying to protect those children, and I cannot fault them for that. I support ANY agency that follows the rules and tries to do what's both ethical and best for the child. You said it very well here. It seems the adoption world can turn very ugly when the rules aren't followed, and no one is held accountable.
I think sometimes you need to read between the lines. Having just switched, we did choose the agency that could get us a referral fast but to children waiting and aged 5-8 months.
Having called several agencies, the ones that promised a quick turn around for a ity bitty infant made me step back and think, really??? and how???
Anyway, some people don't care about ethical vs unethical.
Me, I hope our new agency is eithical. I think they are, they seem to be...but who knows.
I think you just need to be aware of the actual process and move from there.
Exactly. I worry that agencies referring 4 week old babies (how could the paperwork even be done in that time???) are going to break the system for the rest of us. The waiting is excrutiating for me (sometimes I wish I could just turn off the part of my brain that knows this is going on until I get "the call"), but in the end having the security of knowing (1) that every effort has been made to keep that child with their birth family or with a VN family and that ICA is the child's next best hope for a family, and (2) that things have been done in an ethical manner, it is worth it.
Thank you!!!
As frustrating as it is for us PAPs (working with legitimate, reliable, legal agencies) to wait the 4-5 months to travel, it's even more frustrating to read about families taking shortcuts and jeopardizing the entire Vietnam program.
A (PAP in the long wait to travel)
I know this post is over a month old, but as someone with an ethical agency who's been waiting patiently, I really needed to hear this. I've been catching up on your blog and am so happy you are finally getting to travel. And I may borrow your idea of the reading the psalms at night. Thanks and good luck.
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